It was nice, being part of a side with no enemies. At least, no active ones. While Faq was an existential threat… diplomatically they were probably one of the best off, as Queen Jillian was supposedly in love with King Ansom. Her reliability was negative, so beyond treating that border as potentially hostile and thus scouting it thoroughly… there wasn’t much else to do about it on Tanya’s end. Diplomacy was the concern of the King.
Tanya spent most turns escorting Sizemore and Maggie to rebuild (with an apparently safe two-caster linkup that significantly discounted things) and upgrade the various cities, splitting the three-thousand-ish Jetstone infantry that turned along with the city up into forces to garrison the cities. Tanya’s juice was spent either converting those units into garrison units with moneymancy, discounting the final purchase of the city upgrades, or supplying the towers of those cities with some deadly anti-air spells. A few Jetstone warlords were assigned to manage the cities productivity as well as defenses, their Loyalty easily transitioning to serve King Ansom, just as simple as if King Stately croaked and Ansom was promoted that way. There wasn’t enough for each city to have one, so they focused on getting two extra cities up to level 3 so they could start popping Noble warlords.
“The city looks good.” Tanya said, looking over the new city of Fukuokay as the sun rose. It was upgraded straight to level two and set to produce garrison twolls, two per turn, until the city hit the cap of heavy/knight garrison units. Oddly, the signamancy of the new twolls was significantly different than the old ones: they came in red/blue pairs, and gained horns, as if they were muscular oni instead of brown-skinned fat men. This included the tiger-striped loincloths being their only clothing options. They still fought with iron clubs either way, though.
“Thank you.” Sizemore said, smiling softly. “I see so much more of what a city can be, when linked up with Maggie. It’s inspiring.”
Maggie sipped her breakfast tea. “I admit to taking pleasure in shaping this city to be more in line with your signamancy, Princess.”
The city looked a lot like a Japanese suburb, with the tower’s base being a big fancy high school, with a radio tower sticking out of it, a copy of Tokyo tower. The metal exposed tower had poor defenses against aerial attacks, but had twice as many platforms as it should. It was not designed to withstand or repel aerial attacks, but to instead obliterate any who try.
“Is that why there weren’t any pre-loaded spells in the tower this time?” Tanya asked. Normally, a tower held about five caster levels worth of juice per city level, with one tenth of that being automagically-generated defensive spells. This time, there were no such spells, but instead a total of twelve caster levels for the level 2 city.
“Yes!” Sizemore confirmed. “You see, cities aren’t just one thing, “ Which was obvious enough that Tanya suspected that this was supposed to be some kind of revelation. “Each part of a city has its own value and purpose, and when designing one, you can take away from one part to make another part more advanced. In this case, the minimum juice level on the tower was traded for more maximum capacity.”
“A perfect adjustment for a side with what is effectively a master-class shockamancer.” Tanya finished for him before he could elaborate further. “I am impressed. Oh, and congratulations on the new level.” Sizemore was now level 3, which given that he’s never had to croak a unit directly before, is impressive. At least he wasn’t lower level than Maggie now, so him being Chief Caster because he was a noble and Maggie wasn’t was not quite as egregious as it was before.
“Thanks.” Sizemore said, finishing his breakfast. “Well, we’ve got another city to get to today after you finish spelling up the tower. What do you think of the name ‘Notthesake’?
Tanya’s face scrunched up. Something that sounded like a plea for mercy, and rhymed with “Nagasaki”? Now that was terrible Signamancy. “No. Pick something else.”
“Heroshiner?”
“Just as bad.”
Maggie hummed. “What about ‘Ohsake?”
“Much better.” Tanya said, sighing. Why did all of their ideas have to be parodies of Japanese prefectures and cities?
------------------------
Tanya also spent some time drilling and training her knights. Apparently, knights needed to be popped as ‘subordinate’ to a particular warlord, popping with similar specials. As such, their side now possessed a surprisingly large supply of Recon Knights. Recon was an amazing special for scouting, particularly in the mountainous region that Gobwin Knob resided in, well worth their eighty base upkeep, the same as a whole stack of lesser scouts. They could clear approximately the same amount of semi-rough terrain, anyway. In more open terrain… the trade-off was more questionable. In the mountains, it was easily in favor of the Recon knights.
While Bogroll was an excellent Lackey, he was a Garrison unit; unable to follow her anywhere but the capital. So she enlisted one of those knights as an aide de camp. She was almost always stacked with her, and it was something of a comfort to feel the date-a-mancy bond of loyalty and admiration that she held for Tanya. Even if Tanya’s intertwining bond to her was weak and pitiful in comparison.
[Lady Victoria von Secret, level 2]
Combat: 26
Defense: 26
Hits: 8
Move: 61
Specials: Flight, Recon, Noble
They carried spears that looked suspiciously like bayonets on sticks, and they had what appeared to be some kind of flight suit, with a harness that held their equipment like modern tactical netting would.
They had popped forty-eight of the units in addition to Victoria, six stacks that patrolled the territory. Only a few popped with the Noble special, which was rare but not unheard of for knights, which had the same mechanical benefit as the Royal one. With her out-of-hex bonus of two doubled to four and a full stack, the knights had 14 attack and defense, enough to easily croak any feral force found in the Minty Mountains, including dwagons. Although if they found one of those, Tanya sent out a pair of dwagons to screen for them, or just went herself to lend her full bonus. While the odds of a dwagon croaking one of her knights was less than ten percent… their odds were essentially zero if those dwagons were attacking other dwagons instead.
At least, that was what her magical simulations with mathamancy had determined. It had yet to happen, due to the reinforcements. She was unable to properly expand her magical knowledge, but she had become quite confident in the few spells of Mathamancy and Moneymancy they had learned during the siege. She was also forbidden from entering the Magic Kingdom, so as to preserve the secrecy of her status. The fact that several casters already knew was immaterial, to Ansom’s mind. Given that, as far as she knew (and Ansom tried to keep her apprised of the diplomatic situation during their meetings), no other side besides Jetstone seemed to know, he probably had a point.
When it was explained to her that the sapience of non-commanders was questionable, she had expected them to act like video game NPCs. Only a few voice lines, essentially a puppet to their programming.
The reality is somewhat more complex. Even the least intelligent pikers and stabbers weren't that simple, they were just rather single-minded in their lust for violence. Their greatest nightmares were to croak without the chance to inflict a single hit of damage.
None of them liked the idea of being demoted to garrison unit. They didn't complain to her face, but one of the effects of the Recon special was much better hearing than normal. While the HR manager in her heart disliked the idea of her workers having complaints about her decisions, put simply those troops needed to occupy those garrisons anyway, they simply could not afford three thousand field units right now. Making them garrison units meant that they didn't need to spend several tenturns popping such units, instead popping more knights and heavy units.
Her knights were even smarter than that. They were organized and disciplined, and while yes, they were violent maniacs whose favorite part of their scouting trips was to stack up and croak whatever ferals they found, they laughed, cried, and gambled with each other like any soldiers from either Earth would. It may be because they are scouts, who must be more intelligent than ordinary troops by necessity, but Tanya definitely understood why King Ansom had instructed her to place a high priority on preserving their forces. They were people too.
“Princess!” One of her higher-level scouts by the name of Whiner von Newsman said as he saluted in place. He was surprisingly competent, despite the bad signamancy on his name. The non-noble knights tended to avoid talking to her when they could pass it through one of the nobles. They had found some of Charlie’s Archons in Yojo Mojo territory, and Tanya had come flying with a stack of dwagons, mounted with some of their non-flying knights, patterned after King Ansom’s more standard set of points. They were just as strong, tougher, and had lower upkeep than Tanya’s knights, but lacked the obvious mobility advantages nor did they possess any interesting specials. On the other hand, they could ride dwagons, so that was enough.
“Hello, Newsman.” Tanya said in greeting. She wasn’t sure why that felt right, but it did. She turned to the other ‘stack leader’ that she had assigned recently. “Hello as well, Lord White.”
“We are ready for battle, Princess Tanya!” Matt von White, another of the Noble knights, said.
“It might come to that.” Tanya acknowledged, “But I’d prefer to talk.”
The three stacks approached the group of twelve archons who had ended their turn just eight hexes away from Fukuokay. It was really strange to see the floating airline stewardesses in person, they were taller than her, and each and every one was rather beautiful, albeit not nearly as well dressed. “Hail, Archons of Charlescomm.” She announced, using a touch of foolamacy to amplify her voice. She had gotten at least a little practice in, from lessons on what little Maggie recalled on the subject.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The Archons were composed, appearing as if they were merely waiting for Tanya to arrive. But she could feel the beginnings of fear. They knew of her before… or at least some of them did. These Archons must have been involved in the avoided ambush.
Their leader, who presumably had the Leadership special (a rarity among knight-class units, but Archons could have it), floated in front, a sign of peaceful intentions. Tanya immediately identified the backup leader, as her earrings let her pick out which Archons had which specials.
[Mary Sue, Level 7 Archon]
Attack: 18
Defense: 18
Hits: 10
Move: 68
Specials: Shockamancy 6, Dollamancy 1, Leadership 1, Flight, Thinkamancy
Magical Bonus: Mile-High
Hm, that was an interesting set of specials. She knew from Headmaster Isaac when he was using Archons as an example of a unit with lots of magic that Archons could theoretically be lopsided, having very powerful versions of one of their specials but very little else, but it was rare. Her earrings also told her the effect of that magic item, which… seemed to be her high heeled shoes? It reduced the move penalties for flying units going through high mountain hexes. Also, their points were surprisingly similar to her own knights.
That was the fallback Archon, though, the one giving her a dirty look. The actual leader was instead a stern looking woman with a pin of a wasp on her lapel in addition to the Charlescomm logo by the name of Janet. Level 5, Leadership 2, Dollamancy 1, and Foolamancy 2, in addition to the base Thinkamancy and Shockamancy 1. By that math… Charlescomm had a +2 Chief Warlord bonus. Unless the Arkendish boosted archons like the hammer did dwagons. In which case… does he even have a chief warlord? He probably does and the arkendish just doesn’t give a bonus like that. Or if it does, it doesn’t give it to archons, despite his mass use of them.
“From the dossier…” Janet began. “You must be Princess Tanya von Degurechaff.” She bowed politely, without granting a millimeter more respect than required. “Of the new royal side, Yojo Mojo.”
“Yes.” It was a power play of theirs, but it did her no good to lose composure over such a petty thing. “Charlescomm has not established peaceful relations with Yojo Mojo, and you are in violation of our sovereign airspace. If you surrender, we will ransom you back to your side without interrogation.” Unspoken was ‘assuming Charlie pays up’. Charlie struck Tanya as valuing his secrets far more than he does his units, so offering a peaceful deal without attempting to get those secrets was going to be appealing.
Janet smiled sincerely, and the nervous tension of her compatriots calmed. They were prepared for this interaction; while Tanya wasn’t so arrogant as to assume that this force was here purely to make an introduction, it wasn’t unreasonable for the man to brief a group that was already going to be going through there. “Charlsecomm is purely a battlespace solutions provider, we do not conquer or attack sides without contract.” She said, reciting off of a script. “Any and all aggression from Charlsecomm units would only be in the event of ongoing conflict with another side that enters into a contract with Charlescomm to provide such solutions.”
Tanya let the woman go on for another few sentences, and when a pause came up she spoke up: “But we have no guarantee that you have not entered such a contract. Twelve Archons can do a lot of damage to our farms and lower level cities, and it is my Duty to resolve this threat to my side.”
Janet nodded along to her points, anticipating each one. Tanya didn’t expect to catch her by surprise, so it didn’t bother her. Tanya wouldn’t be surprised, given Charlescomm’s corporate appearance, if their end was guided by a literal flowchart. “Charlescomm understands your concerns as a third party to Charlescomm operations, and is prepared to offer our standard free passage agreement to protect both our assets and yours from unprofitable conflict.” She held out her hands in a thinkagram pose and text started appearing with a scroll bar, very reminiscent of an end-user license agreement.
Tanya looked over the agreement. While it was worded a bit… obtusely, she was quite familiar with corporate legal-speak, even in English, and was able to parse it with relative ease. Essentially, Charlescomm agrees to not take any contracts against Yojo Mojo without two turns advance notice, with one hundred thousand shmuckers as a penalty. High, but given that he could pass that cost over to his client, maybe not high enough. In return, an identical penalty was levied to Yojo Mojo if Charlescomm units got croaked by their units.
“This is absurd.” Tanya said, frowning. “As written, you could bankrupt us just by throwing your units at one of our unled cities, liquidating our entire side before we could react.” She wasn’t sure if Archons could make golems, but dumping a bunch of the cheapest possible kind of dollamancy golem would be the perfect method.
Janet smiled again, while the other Archons looked nervous or impressed at Tanya. Except for Mary. She was still glaring. “Please hold for Charlie.” Janet said in a sing-song manner.
When the incoming Thinkagram came in, Tanya immediately shut it out. Maggie had warned her about this. “You Archons are perfectly capable of acting as an air-gapped relay. Do so.” She commanded.
Now that precaution cracked Janet’s composure. Maggie’s warnings against accepting thinkagrams from Charlie gave Tanya the impression that thinkagrams weren’t nearly as safe as the thinkamancers would like people to think they are, so few people would ask for that measure. Not that she pointed that out, but the warning didn’t make sense without that being true.
Nevertheless, Janet held out her fingers and created an image of… Being X? Tanya felt her face twist into hate before she could stop herself, but the image dissolved and was replaced by some kind of white furry thing with long ears that were decorated with gold loops. “Hello, Princess!” Charlie’s voice was smooth, confident. “Would you like to make a contract?”
Well, if she didn’t already know that Charlie never shows his face to people, she’d be offended. “Yes.” Tanya replied, “While I would love to croak your units and claim those cute shoes for my side, it would be preferable if we could come to some sort of accord.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I am not amused at your so-called ‘standard’ agreement.”
After the negotiations were concluded, Tanya liked to think she got her side a good deal. After all, while she could make attacks on Yojo Mojo very expensive in the lives of archons, Charlescomm was still a very dangerous side. Strategically, probably their second-greatest threat. Right after Faq.
In return for permission for Archons to travel unmolested through Yojo Mojo airspace, which was only valuable because of the side’s proximity to Charlescomm, Charlie had to give them a single turn of warning before he could take any offensive action against Yojo Mojo. As in, Yojo Mojo needed to be able to take one whole turn to prepare for suddenly-hostile archons, including the opportunity to attack any still within the battlespace. The penalty was also increased to five hundred thousand shmuckers.
In addition, Charlecomm would grant Yojo Mojo two thousand shmuckers of ‘store credit’ per turn, which could be used to purchase dollamacy items from his catalog, including the Mile-High club shoes, or any other service Charlescomm provides. Given how overpriced those items likely were, this was less lucrative than it seemed.
The penalty for breaking the agreement was also five hundred thousand shmuckers on their end, but with adequate ass-covering to prevent Charlie from forcing the payment, and no matter how many violations were made, only one payment would be owed and the contract would be terminated, with any accumulated credit forfeited, and there was also no penalty for actions against Charlescomm assets outside of Yojo Mojo and Charlescomm territory.
In other words… it safeguarded Yojo Mojo, gave them a minor income stream, and all they had to do was nothing. King Ansom was annoyed that Tanya didn’t confirm with him before signing, but agreed that it was a good deal, perfectly in line with their side’s strategic objectives, and she did warn him in advance that she intended to cut a deal with Charlie.
---------------------------
It was about thirty turns of building up when King Ansom summoned Tanya for a meeting. Due to Sizemore and Maggie’s efforts, all nine of the city sites were built up to at least level two, with three level three cities: Gobwin Knob, Orgchart, and the city of Gin-G, which was one of Tanya’s attempts to use signamancy to improve a city’s ability to pop useful units. By using a human resources pun, the city site, whose farms of juniper berries produced an inordinate amount of gin rations, may produce more useful commanders. She just wished that she did a better job conveying her intent to Sizemore and Maggie, they couldn’t seem to comprehend the word ‘Jinji’, but did their best.
“You all have done the Titans proud with your diligence to your duties.” King Ansom began, “But it is time to start honoring our debts.” He gestured to a pre-prepared battle map. Tanya didn’t recognize the terrain, but all that meant was that it wasn’t Yojo Mojo’s territory. “Lord Rockwell, I would like you to start putting in work to improve the capital back to a level five. In addition, I want you to start developing a siege golem, similar in function to Jetstone’s battle bears. As of now, our only siege is a handful of purple dwagons and some towers we can’t effectively move. I wish to be prepared when we need to make more.”
Sizemore put his hand to his mouth in thought, as was his habit. “Hm, that should be an interesting project. If I recall, the battle bears could push maximum size siege towers with only two of them.”
“That is correct.” King Ansom confirmed, “I realize Stanley has underutilized your talents, Lord Rockwell, but while dwagons and our scout-knights make a fine hammer for our side, we need your expertise to craft an anvil for our enemies.” Ansom had explained why siege was so important to an effective attack on a side, even for sides with effective flying forces: Walls were tough, and by bringing siege you either got to go past them easily or force them to put units on the walls, which were non-factors if you also attacked from above or below those walls. Blitzing with high move units sounded like a good strategy… until you realize that you need to actually defend the cities you capture. For them, this was not such a big deal, as they could send Sizemore to cheaply rebuild, but if the city was high level it was easier to just have an infantry force ready to defend your new city.
But while they could just keep popping spidews to pull siege towers, there were good reasons why Jetstone used battle bears so setting Sizemore on creating a Dirtamancy equivalent was a logical decision.
“Moving on, Tanya:” King Ansom said, shifting somewhat uncomfortably on the throne. “Jetstone has been in a state of war with Haggar for twenty-seven turns. It is not going well, the resources that Jetstones has spared for us was a cost they could not afford, so we must repay that debt.” Tanya did not like the sound of this.
King Ansom continued: “Now, as we are peers, and my father refuses to see reason on the matter of our debt,” Meaning that King Stately reiterated his previous point on Yojo Mojo not being a colony, “We will be trading support with him. First, you will be reinforcing his cities defenses with your shockamancy. In return, we will be allowed to use the services of Ace Hardware, level one novice dollamancer.” She really hopes he doesn’t ask for more battle bears… “I will leave the details of his service to yourself and Lord Rockwell, but it will be juice for juice.”
Tanya exchanged a silent glance with Sizemore, and he tilted his head deferentially. So she’ll be able to pick, huh? Still, only receiving an equal amount of juice was bad negotiating, if it was an novice dollamancer for master-class shockamancy. But King Ansom saw it as his duty to give Jetstone a good deal, and that was his right as the ruler, to suck up to their primary patrons. “Accessories for my knights would be ideal.” She said, “I suggest ordering one of each of the items I pointed out as useful from Charlie’s catalog so that Ace may duplicate them.” A novice should be able to manage that much…
“Make it so.” Ansom ordered, looking at Maggie.
“Yes, your majesty.” Maggie replied, curtseying. She had changed her usual skirt suit to a fancier one when they entered the capital, presumably purchasing the outfit from a dollamancer in the Magic Kingdom.
“In addition to this, we will be sending some of our knights to support their war effort with scouting and air defense.” Ansom said, adding to his orders as ruler. Tanya could sense the words being etched in her memory as an objective, testing itself against her duty and finding itself acceptable. “Jetstone will pay their upkeep for as long as they are deployed, and we will be entitled to spoils commiserate with our contribution.”
Tanya frowned. “If I will be in the back lines and my men in the front, I would like to promote Lord White and Lord Kurig to warlord, assuming we are sending one or two stacks. If we are sending three or more, I would like to also promote Lord Newsman.” After a moment, she added: “At Jetstone’s expense.”
Ansom didn’t particularly like that idea, but he nodded. “They are nobles, so it is acceptable.” He replied. “We will be sending four stacks, and Father won’t pay for the promotion. Costs like that will be considered in spoils calculations.”
Four? That wasn’t good. They only had six… Tanya hummed. “We’ll need to reduce our scout density to make sure we cover enough area, and pair them with dwagons to bolster their strength until we can replace them.” Tanya’s mental map of Yojo Mojo’s territory flashed in her mind, the scouting routes being adjusted for the change.
“Lord Webinar will be able to handle the local scouting reports, Tanya.” King Ansom said, smiling amusedly. “As the Chief Warlord, you need to think of the bigger picture. That goes double for your eventual reign.” Ah, Tanya had wondered when King Ansom would say something about her future reign. He never gets through a meeting without mentioning it.
Tanya glanced at the former. Jetstone warlord, the level 5 being the highest level one that wasn’t Tanya or Ansom. “Send me full reports.” She ordered.
“Yes, Princess.” Lord Webinar said immediately. Competent man, good attention to detail. He used to be the city manager for Orgchart, but Ansom’s orders re-arranged things so that Lord Webinar would be at the capital.
“When do I leave?” Tanya asked.
“Next turn.” King Ansom answered, “You will meet my brother, Prince Tramennis, at a rendezvous point in Unaroyal territory that is within one turn of move for you and your aide de camp, and he awaits with unipegataur mounts to get you to Jetstone territory in the turn after that.” In other words, spend juice before leaving. “He will instruct you further at that time.” He paused, visibly considering whether or not he should say the next thing on his mind. “...Beware my brother. He can be so terribly charming.” What.
“...I don’t think that will be an issue.” Tanya drily replied.